Are the Swans now among favourites for the Championship?

The Championship is never easy to predict. Last season the Swans were expected by some to bounce straight back up to the Premier League, while nobody would have seen the bad dip in form of Leeds that would cost them so severely come the Play-offs.

The bookies all had their favourites at the beginning of term, and odds have already started to turn, in favour of the Swans.

It’s been a great start for Steve Cooper’s men who have gone unbeaten so far to sit second in the table, behind only Leeds after four wins and a draw in their opening five fixtures.

That’s seen the bookmakers adjust their odds for the league, with many pricing them at 14/1 and fourth favourite, ahead now of bitter rivals Cardiff.

It’s the perfect time to adjust your betting as the bookies seem caught in limbo following their original predictions, and while Leeds United remain large favourites, it could be a good time to start covering more basis and building a strategy.

This is called arb betting and could be a successful strategy should the Swans end up going into win the league, which many pundits are suggesting could happen.

They’ve put faith in youth and it’s paying off considerably. They were fantastic once again against Birmingham at the weekend and had initially been hacked to finish bottom half with the bookies.

Saturday will be a big test in seeing whether they have the quality to remain at the right end of the table. They take on Leeds in a top of the table clash at Elland Road which will be a fantastic game of football, but aren’t fancied at all.

The platform had been left by Graham Potter last season and Cooper has so far seen the fruits from investing the time in Swansea’s Academy system. The players now need to prove they can be consistent across a season, which is no mean feat for teenagers and boys in their early-20s.

That drive to bring players through the ranks is working. Dan James has scored two goals for Manchester United already this season, but had yet to make an appearance for Swansea at this stage last season.

Oliver McBurnie is another that’s seen a Premier League move. This time next season Cooper will be hoping that all his young stars are top flight players, but this time in a Swansea City shirt.

The job is far from complete though. The Championship is tough and the club will have to continue to progress and offer consistency, with the young stars keeping their feet on the ground and working hard.

They deserve to be championed as it stands and are certainly going to improve their odds of promotion if they continue on the same path. What’s perhaps more telling is that Cooper, his backroom team and indeed the entire club are already looking to see who’s next to come through.

He said, “Who’s next? That has to be the mentality.

“The objective is to produce players for the first team. We’ve got to work with the academy every day to make that happen.”

Whichever way you look at it, given the usual summer turmoil that has courted Swansea City in recent years, few would have the club having an unbeaten start to the season.